Family Recipe: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

 

My dad and I have been on a cookie binge this month, and so far we've been eating through our stash of ready to bake cookies. This week I decided that instead of baking another just okay batch of cookies, I would make some homemade goodies.

I pulled this recipe out of my grandparents' recipe box and after a little tweaking, I suddenly had five dozen super-moist cookies flavored with spices and chock full of plump, sweet raisins. Yum!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies -- Makes about 60 cookies

1 1/2 cups cooked raisins

1 1/2 cups water

6 Tbs raisin water

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

2 cups oats (I use Quaker quick oats)

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a small pan, add the raisins and water. Cook on med-high heat for about 20 minutes until raisins are plump.

3. Drain raisins, reserving 6 tablespoons of water. Because it will be hot, cool in in the freezer for 15 minutes or so.

3. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer. Add eggs, vanilla, and raisin water and mix well.

4. In another bowl, mix flour, soda, salt, and spices. Add to wet mixture and mix well.

5. Fold in oats and raisins. You may need to use a spoon at this point.

6. If dough is too soft, cool in the freezer for 10 minutes. Form dough 
into golf ball-sized balls and place onto a lightly greased baking sheet about 1/2 an inch apart.

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes*. Let cool completely before moving to an air-tight container. 

*The original cook time was 15 minutes, which is how long I cooked the first batch. Those cookies will look like the cookie on the left. For the next two batches, I baked the cookies for 12 minutes, like the cookie on the right. Each will yield a most cookie, but the 12-minute cookies have a more cake-like texture.